Hold Out?
by MissBonhamCartersPoppet
Summary: Elphaba is out on a mission for the resistance, and she runs into the last person she had expected to meet. Bookverse.


A/N: I don't really like this, but I've edited to death. Meh. I always thought Glinda and Elphaba should have met at some point... So I wrote it.

Set post Fiyero-Glinda meeting. I hope you know your bookverse.

Disclaimed.

* * *

"Elphie?"

This sound, the sound of a name Elphaba had sought to forget, a name that brought back all sorts of emotions that she had kept holed up somewhere in the back of her mind, behind that steadfast wall of independence; that name made her blood run cold. That small, feeble "Elphie?, a question without an answer (for was she 'Elphie' anymore?), a plea of recognition from a person she had hoped she would never have to face again (or was that wished for every moment since they had parted?). For even with her back turned, even with her eyes trained on the grimy floor of this disgusting alley of the Emerald City, she knew to whom the voice belonged.

Her father, in his aging and devoted dottiness, had called her Fabala; her mother, smelling sweetly of wine and depression, had refused to sway from Elphaba; Fiyero, who waited impatiently for her in their sweltering nest of rubbish and adultery, called her Fae. At Shiz, it was Miss Elphaba.

Only one person, when not using it as a tool of ridicule or degradation, called her _Elphie_. Even without the sugar-sweet, heightened tones of the speaker, Elphaba would have known that Glinda stood behind her.

"Elphie? Is that really you?"

She had imagined this meeting, forbidden as it was. At night, when Fiyero breathed deeply, calmly at her side, sweat gleaning his skin and making his blue diamond tattoos dance in the moonlight, she would close her eyes and conjure up fantastic scenes-

They were at a crowded market, their hands would reach for a common object, brush, and instinctively they would know each other. They would embrace, there would be tears. And then they would ride off into the green sunset of the Emerald City.

She never was one for romantic imagination.

Glinda's questions were absent, her anger evaporated. There would be no need to explain. They would slip into place, as though the past five years had never occurred. But as Elphaba faced Glinda, she shook with how wrong her daydreams had been. Glinda was elaborately dressed, in silks and saffrons, her hair drawn back, shorter than Elphaba remembered, with strategic curls falling where they had been bid. She glittered with jewels, too rich for their poverty-stricken surroundings (what was _she_ doing here, anyway?). A large diamond glittered tauntingly on her tiny ring finger. Elphaba felt a jolt of something (jealousy? after all this time?) in her stomach. Glinda's face seemed blank, something like shock smoothing her youthful forehead.

"It is you."

There was finality to her words, wonderment, but also anger, ill-concealed. Elphaba turned to flee (instinct of five years, not yet worn off), but melted into the warmth of Glinda's hand on her wrist. _Wait_, the gesture said.

"Where were you?"

She was accusing, already. Elphaba glanced down the street- it was deserted- and turned more fully to face her friend. She lowered her cloak and untucked her hair from her collar. Glinda's face was ashen.

"You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Then suddenly, a blinding pain hit Elphaba across the cheek. Glinda, chest heaving, her arm still poised in mid-air, looked at her hand as though it were a foreign object, and watched Elphaba stumble from pain.

"Glinda-"

But Glinda had turned her head away, and already tears fell. "I waited. I waited two years for you. I watched Nessa fall into herself with grief, I faced Nanny's wrath. I stood up to Morrible for you." Her voice cracked with emotion, as though each word were a needle inserted into her heart. "And I told myself that it would be worth it." She looked at Elphaba, no longer trying to blink back her tears (of resentment? Of loss?), "I told myself it would be worth it in the end. When you came back."

Glinda spat the last sentence like it burned her tongue, and her words were beatings upon Elphaba's back.

"Glinda, I-"

"Don't." The blonde shook with fury, her eyes ablaze. "Just don't."

Elphaba stepped forward, her right cheek blushed furiously from where Glinda had slapped her, wanting more than ever to take her friend in her arms and never let go. Glinda flinched at her touch, pushed her feebly away, her voice skewered by sobs.

"You can't just... It's not alright to... I'm not..." she mumbled, resisting vocally but sinking into Elphaba's chest all the same, holding onto the green girl so tightly she feared she would soon lose circulation.

Elphaba whispered questions like promises into Glinda's soft hair- _Who did she marry? Did he treat her well? Did they have children? Did she ever finish her course in sorcery? Did she keep in touch with Nessa still? Why was she here, in the slums of the Emerald City?_

_Was she happy?_

Before Glinda could answer, she drew back and touched her fingers to the scarf tucked around Elphaba's throat. Red roses on a black background, slik with fringe. Fiyero's most recent present. Glinda's eyes sparkled with recognition, then anger.

" `Hold out, my sweet?` " she quoted Elphaba back at herself, mockingly. "I should have known it would never work both ways."

She stormed away, out of the street, taking with her the light that had so prematurely lit Elphaba's eyes. She walked out of the alley, and out of Elphaba's life. Elphaba, who stood confused and ashamed, her hood still open, her face bare to the elements. She waited in silence until it became dark enough to warrant the use of streetlights, then sealed up her person and ran. Darting though backstreets and dustbins, the homeless and hopeless, to Fiyero; who, she thought furiously, had quite a bit of explaining to do.

* * *

Well, I couldn't make it a _happy _ending, could I? This is Gelphie, after all. And I always thought Fiyero should not have gotten away with meeting Glinda and not telling Elphie. Just terrible. R&R please.


End file.
